We Fit So Perfectly
by Jemibub
Summary: Andi Gentile is more than the girl with the great smile who stole Robert Brewster from Stacey McGill. She swears. At least, she hopes she is.
1. Smells of Spice and the Open Sea

**We Fit So Perfectly**

Summary: Andi Gentile is more than the girl with the great smile who stole Robert Brewster from Stacey McGill. She swears. At least, she hopes she is.

Rating: Teen, for eventual mild violence, saucy language and adult situations.

Author's Note: Gosh, aren't tertiary characters whose development arc makes little sense fun? From Andi's point of view, this story will begin in the girls' seventh grade and travel, vignette-style, until they are in their early 20s. I promise to sprinkle more familiar characters throughout. Also, giving credit where credit is due: this was inspired by my time at the SHS rpg on Livejournal.

~*~*~

**Smells of Spice and the Open Sea**

On the first day of school in the seventh grade, I threw up. Into the bushes. Outside the school. In front of a boy.

It wasn't nerves. If I was going to be nervous, it would have been on the first day of _sixth_ grade, when we were all new to middle school and I had no clue what had changed between my friends and I in this transition between little kid school and almost-grownup school. Didn't we become nearly adults when we hit middle school? After all, the summer before grade six, Jacob Greene kissed me at summer camp after giving me the lollipop he had won for excelling at camp-wide games. So that meant something. Something grownup.

By seventh grade, we were settled. My friends and I, I mean. We knew who we were – and there were nerves still, but the nerves were different. A constant state of instability, but not a fear of the unknown specific to the first day.

We were The Group. Middle school nobility in the most real sense of the world. The boys were good at sports – football, basketball and baseball were the biggies, even then. A sign of what was going to come when we reached the true grownup arena of high school. Track and soccer boys hovered around the edges, unless they had money or something utterly cool – like a leather jacket – about them.

The girls were cheerleaders – like my outrageously bubbly friend Sheila and her bestie Mia– or fun party girls – like my other two dear friends Jacqui and Heather, who always managed to supply the goods to spike the punch at the party. And then there was me. I wasn't a cheerleader, but I was _flexible_ – three nights of dance a week will do that. I think I was maybe there by the sheer virtue of being tight with Sheila MacGregor and Jacqui Grant . I couldn't do Pizza Express after games on Thursday nights because I had contemporary and jazz class, but they had to keep me around, if they wanted to continue getting the entire Group drunk off of a two-six of vodka.

That... and I was _pretty_. As a teenager, it was insanely obvious that I had modelled as a baby. I was all shiny brown hair, dimples and long legs. Boys loved to lift me up and swing me around to show off their newly burgeoning "man strength". I shrieked, they laughed, we got in trouble for making too much noise in the school library. If the girls – the girls other than _my_ girls – didn't like me, it didn't matter because the boys did.

And then there was my very best friend since the beginning of time – or since our best friend mothers first started forcing us to have "cute" sleepovers at the age of three – Alex Zacharias. Alex was part of the basketball team power block. Him, Robert Brewster, Marty Bukowski and RJ Blaser. He was the nicest boy in The Group, the biggest conscience, the most _gentlemanly_ – at least if you asked me. And being part of the power block made him absolutely indispensible, so it didn't matter if he was a little bit too nice in comparison to the usual attitude of The Group. Robert was always nice too. And it didn't matter if he carried me along with him. The boys always wanted me around too.

It was Alex that I threw up in front of on the first day of school. We were walking to school together, the way we did every day. Alex seemed to have grown six inches over the summer and I was wearing my first pair of strappy heels. Even with my long legs, I was having trouble keeping up with him, but I forced myself to carry on an ongoing conversation, my heels clicking along in accompaniment all the while. I was chattering about how I would absolutely _die_ if I had the same math teacher I had had in grade six, he had always written so _small_ on the blackboard, when my stomach flipped over.

I think I was still getting over a little bit of a summer cold. Or yogurt I had eaten in my cereal was slightly past its prime – I _had_ had to stir it, hadn't I? Either way, I was on my knees in front of the school bushes, narrowly avoiding having my eye poked out by a branch, and gagging before I could fully comprehend what was actually happening. But it _wasn't_ nerves.

And there were strong, surprisingly large hands, pulling my long hair back over my shoulders and out of the way. "Geez, Andi, what'd you eat for breakfast?" a voice chuckled in my ear as the hands slid down to brace my shoulders. "Your puke is _purple_."

It was then that I remembered Alex was there. My face flushed red – not the usual pretty pink – and I scrambled out of his grasp, finding my way unsteadily to my feet. My legs were still a little bit shaky and I had trouble finding my footing in my heels in the grass, but it was better than being embarrassed and needing Alex to hold me up. "Shut your mouth," I muttered sulkily, averting my gaze from the bush. The last thing I needed was to possibly see splatters of my own vomit on the spindly leaves of the bush and throw up again.

Alex was still trying to control his laughter as he clambered to his feet. "Come on, barf is funny," he protested. The laughter died on his lips as he caught sight of my face. Years later when I admitted to this being the most embarrassing moment of my life, he told me that I was blushing and turning white at the same time.

"Hey, hey," he crooned soothingly, gathering me into his arms and pressing my head against his shoulder maybe a tiny bit clumsily. "You okay?"

As my eyes squeezed shut to avoid getting an eyeful of blue tshirt, I couldn't help but inhale an overwhelming whiff of... _Alex_. He smelled vaguely of Old Spice and something more organic. I had a brief memory of Alex mowing his lawn in this tshirt while I harassed him from a beach towel on the driveway and read magazines. When had he gotten so _strong_? When had his shoulders broadened to the point that my face could actually be buried in them? As I pulled away to look up at him – another new sensation – it struck me that this was the first time I was really seeing my very best friend since the beginning of time... as a _boy_. I had thrown up in the bushes outside of the school in front of Alex. But I had also thrown up in front of a _boy_.

"I'm fine," I murmured, my voice coming out in a far too small voice as I looked down at my small sandaled feet standing toe to toe with Alex's skate shoes.

Alex heaved a huge sigh, sliding one finger under my chin to force me to look up at him. "Don't be dumb," he grumbled. In a split second he had slung me up over his shoulder and was carrying me fireman style into the school. "If you can't be trusted to not throw up, you can't be trusted to walk."

_When had he turned into a boy?_


	2. Guys Go For Looks, Girls Go For Status

**Guys Go For Looks, Girls Go For Status**

By the beginning of eighth grade, I had shot up myself, reaching 5'6" – what I didn't know then wasn't even my _full height_. If my mama hadn't drilled it into me to be well-behaved and gracious around adults, I would have thrown a temper tantrum right there in the doctor's office as soon as I was measured at my yearly check-up. If I had ever had any dreams of being a ballerina – which I didn't, I had given that up as a discipline when I was eleven and realized I hated the feeling of being out of control that came with spinning – they were gone with my height.

I was taller than all of my friends at this point – minus Mia, who had been a beanpole since we were kids. In middle school, she started dying her hair black, wearing thick eyeliner and dressing in all black – cultivating a look so maybe no one noticed she was taller than all the boys. I always noticed that her bony wrists poked out of the cuffs of her shirts, though. And I loved Mia, but that wasn't going to be me. I was little and cute Andi who the boys in The Group loved to pick up and throw around.

Luckily Alex had kept pace with me, height-wise. I could get away with the stacked heels I had gotten steadily used to over the past year around Alex and not tower over him.

Basketball boys and high school boys were growing steadily of more interest to me once my absurd height became clear.

"Andi, what the hell are we watching?" Alex asked, brashly and loudly, as he stared almost slackjawed at my basement rec room tv.

"My new favourite movie ever, Centre Stage," I replied promptly, twisting my head in time to see the "Romeo and Juliet" ballet clip. It was Karen Kain style choreography, the Juliet wasn't spinning so much. _But you are no Karen Kain and you can't get away with being the same height as her _and_ not spinning,_ I reminded myself wryly.

"You've got me watching a _dance_ movie?" Alex said incredulously, arching one of his eyebrows.

"Mmmm," I replied simply, fluttering my eyelashes and flashing a close-mouthed Mona Lisa smile at the boy sitting on the other end of the couch. It was a Friday night at the beginning of the school year and I had lured my very best friend into hanging out with me instead of his boys with the promise of cookies.

I sighed, burrowing deeper into the couch, my feet pressing harder against Alex's leg. "My legs hurt," I whined.

"Why do your legs hurt?" he replied absently, one of his hands settling onto my bare left food, which maybe should have grossed me out. But it didn't.

"We were doing a bunch of lunges and balance stuff in my contemporary class yesterday. They're just sore." My voice took on a petulant tone, refusing to be grateful that at least I didn't have growing pains compounding the soreness.

"Awwww," Alex pursed his lips at me, not remotely sympathetically. Until he lifted my legs up and shifted down the couch to the centre cushion, placing my legs over his lap. Without a word, he started rubbing my legs with surprising gentleness, from the calves up.

I always knew that Alex was the nicest boy in The Group if you knew him like I did. I let out a happy little sigh, the movie forgotten as my eyes fluttered shut. "That feels _so_ good, Alex. You should do that as a job or something someday."

"I'll keep that in mind when my pro ball career is over," Alex's voice drawled from the vicinity of my knees and I let out a giggle, my eyes still closed.

There was a long, comfortable moment of silence. "You know who I think is really cool?" I asked absently, stretching my toes out against the cushion of the couch arm.

"Who?"

"Stacey McGill." My eyes blinked open to see Alex giving me a puzzled expression. "She's in my English class. I like her. She's taller than me."

"You gotta get over the height shit," Alex commented offhandedly, pretending not to notice me squirm as his thumbs dug into my thighs. "Stacey... she's one of those girls who do the babysitting thing?"

Even _Alex's_ voice held a small touch of the typical condescension when he referred to that club. I winced and the pressure on my legs abruptly let up. Alex had misunderstood where my expression had come from.

"Well... yeah, she is," I admitted grudgingly. "But she's _way_ cooler than the other ones. Did you know she's from New York? And we've been talking in class while we're supposed to be working on our symbolism project and she just has the most _fabulous_ taste in music."

I wanted a best friend. Deeply. Maybe it was baby-ish, but I desperately wanted one. My girls were great, but it always seemed to parcel off to Sheila-Mia and Jacqui-Heather. And then me. And Alex was double-great... but he couldn't help me pick out lip gloss or fix it if my bra underwire started lacerating me at school.

"Anyway. I just like having someone who isn't lame to talk to in class," I summed up pathetically, barely touching on any of my true emotions in that statement.

Alex just gave me a crookedly amused smile, his mind clearly still caught up in "babysitting = baby-ish".

Suddenly, he clapped his hands down on my legs. I jumped. Giving me a slightly abashed grin, Alex patted my legs again, gentler this time. "There you go, Princess. Your legs feel any better?"

"What did you just call me?" My legs tucked up under myself so I could slide in beside Alex. I bridged the two cushions, my knees pressed up against his leg.

"Uhh... _Princess_," Alex replied in a grumble, not meeting my eyes. I couldn't understand why he looked embarrassed.

"I like it," I declared, granting Alex a bright dimply smile that I had no idea then could be utterly devastating. My forehead wrinkled when he didn't turn towards me, missing the sneaky look he gave my smile out of the corner of his eye.

In a perfect unconscious imitation of a movie heroine, I extended my hand to cup Alex's cheek, drawing his face towards mine. "I like it," I repeated, my hand hovering on his cheek. "I mean, what girl doesn't want to grow up to be a Princess?"

I had a split-second to watch Alex's face before his lips met mine. _Oh!_ My very best friend since the beginning of time was kissing me. When I kissed Jacob back before sixth, he had tasted like dust from the camp-wide games and my lips had been sticky and lemon-flavoured from the lollipop. The kisses since then had felt rather perfunctory – I and whatever boy were members of The Group and were grownups, so of _course_ we should kiss.

Alex felt like confetti.

After what felt like a lifetime, Alex pulled away. My hand fell limply from his cheek. I opened my mouth, a translucent question on the tip of my tongue, before shutting it again.

Funfetti cupcakes.

His eyes met mine finally. "Do you want to go out, Andi?" asked my very best friend.

Raspberry gingerale bubbles.

I flashed Alex my second devastating smile of the night, my stomach filling up with the gingerale bubbles. I maybe should have thought about it. How it could change things. Maybe... probably. Instead, I just listened to the gingerale. "Yes."

"Cool." Alex placed a clumsy arm awkwardly over my shoulder, ducking his head so I wouldn't see his giddy smile. "Can we watch a different movie now?"

"Nope." I pressed my feet against the couch arm and laid my head against Alex's shoulder in a near perfect reversal of my previous position. Alex tightened his arm, drawing me into his side. Like a boyfriend. "But you can choose the next one."


	3. Most Nights Are Crystal Clear

**Most Nights Are Crystal Clear, But Tonight It's Like I'm Stuck Between Stations**

Every day now, we made a sweep through the grade eight locker hallway after school. Robert Brewster would stride down from the Bs, usually pausing en route to chide Marty Bukowski for shoving some wannabe into a locker as he passed. From my locker in the G section, we would sweep down to the Ms to grab Stacey McGill. Stacey and I always took a long time at our lockers – makeup, reorganizing books, redressing my absolutely adorable Barbie locker magnet – and, without fail, Alex would always be up from the Zs before Stacey and I had finished fixing our hair. I took solace in the fact that if Alex had been in gym class during last period, he would take _just_ as long at the end of the day. That fact that Stacey and I _didn't_ have gym was irrelevant. Sometimes Sheila would join up with us at Stacey's locker – depending on if she was "on" with either Marty or Wayne at the time – but, always, the four of us made up the core group.

A few months into the eighth grade and this was already our routine as if it had _always_ been this way. Of course, it hadn't. When we started the year, Stacey was just the New York girl in my Math and English classes. Alex and I weren't dating. Until RJ Blaser noticed her and drew her to The Group's attention, Stacey was barely a blip on Robert's radar. Honestly, she was barely a blip on the social radar. It was the babysitting – the Babysitters' Club – thing. It's hard to _be_ anything when you sit with the same people every day at lunch and hang out with seven year olds during your extracurricular time. I'm not being mean. It's just... one of those things, you know?

But. There was a fight. A big one. I didn't know all of the details – Stacey wasn't really forthcoming with them with anyone by Robert – but there was something about the fallout of Robert and quitting basketball and then the _babysitters_ were upset because she was spending too much time with us, I think?

And Stacey chose us. It became Sheila and Mia, Jacqui and Heather... and me and Stacey. Stacey chose us... but more important, she chose _me_. Alex and Robert were best friends and now me and Stacey were too. It was perfect.

That day it was just Stacey and me. Robert had caught my eye from down the hallway and mimed shooting hoops before jerking his thumb at Marty – who was admirably _not_ shoving around anyone smaller than him that day. I winked at Robert and tossed my bookbag over my shoulder before clicking down the hallway to deliver the message to Stacey. I was _far_ too grownup for a backpack. "Robert's going to play ball with Marty tonight," I announced, leaning against Wayne McConville's locker beside hers and trying to peer past Stacey to look in her locker mirror. My ponytail may have wilted on the way down the hallway, past all those smelly teenage boys.

"Oh _good_," Stacey replied, a relieved smile crossing her face. She leaned forward, obscuring my view of her mirror, and fluffed her blonde hair. "I have a baby... a thing tonight, so that makes it way easier. Where's Alex?"

Ah. Wasn't that the million dollar question of the day? Biting down on my lower lip, I admitted, "I don't know. He wasn't in school today and he didn't..." _And he didn't call me?_ Wasn't it a little bit ridiculous of me to expect Alex to call me in the morning if he wasn't going to be at school that day? It wasn't something he did _before_ he asked me out, why would it start after he did? "Anyway, I think I'm just going to swing by his house before I go home and see if he's okay. Maybe he's sick and needs cookies or something."

Stacey rolled her eyes, but she didn't call me 'Sparkle Princess' or make fun of my new love of baking the way I'm sure Jacqui would have. All in a loving and supportive friends-forever way, of course. "We can walk together." She slammed her locker closed and adjusted her black corduroy bag as she slid her math textbook into it. We had matching bookbags. Best friends. As we headed out of the school, the click of my heeled boots barely audible in the loud hallway, Stacey lowered her voice, "I have a babysitting job tonight and it's right by Alex's house so it works out well."

"Oh, _Stacey_." I was aiming for sympathetic, but I think my voice came out slightly tinged with judgment. No wonder she had been so thrilled that Robert was going to play basketball – babysitting wasn't something to brag over. "I thought you quit the club."

"I did." Stacey's reply was mild, but I still immediately felt guilty. Best friends weren't supposed to judge each other's recreational activities. "It's just this one girl, Charlotte Johanssen, that I'm really close with so her parents still keep calling me. We call each other almost sisters." Stacey turned her face briefly to look at me, an abashed smile twitching across her lips.

The smile struck me. Her voice hadn't changed at all, but the smile made it clear that this was a confession. Stacey trusted me enough to share her less than completely cool hobbies. Besides. If anyone could understand the appeal of "almost sisters", it was definitely me.

"Anyway," she continued in an airy tone, fluffing her blonde hair once again. Cold Connecticut weather wasn't the kindest on volume – especially when our volume came mostly from blow drying our hair upside and maybe perming it (if we were Stacey). "If it turns out that your boy isn't desperately in need of your Florence Nightingale-ing, you should come over to my place after dinner. We can do our homework together. I'll help you with your math."

My nose had automatically crinkled at the mention of homework – so evil, so necessary – and my forehead joined the crinkled expression when she mentioned Math. "Stace, as hard as it may be to believe, I'm good in math. I might be your only friend who _doesn't_ need your help."

"Riiiiiight," Stacey replied in a very wry New York way, trying to arch one eyebrow at me, but mostly just pushing the other eyebrow down. After a moment of trying not to giggle at her ridiculous face, her expression softened some and she looked at me curiously. "You _are_ good at math. How come you never answer questions in class?"

I shrugged, tucking my hands into my coat pockets. Our math teacher's writing on the board was really small and I didn't want to run the risk of misreading one of the numbers. People always thought pretty girls were dumb anyway, why would I want to feed into that?

Luckily, we reached Alex's street just then, saving me from having to explain the math situation. "Gotta go. The boy awaits his nursemaid. I'll see you at, like, seven, okay?" Math was forgotten. Stacey and I exchanged hugs and waves, as teenage girls are apt to, and then I clicked down Alex's road alone.

At Alex's doorway, our special knock – born from years of friendship – itched at my fingertips. At the last moment, I knocked normally without fully knowing why. And thank goodness I had, because it was Alex's _mom_ who opened the door. Shouldn't she have been at work still?

I had known Alex's mom for my entire life. She was my own mama's closest friend. She had never looked like this before. Her face was tight over her cheekbones and forehead, as if her skin had somehow shrunk since the last time I had seen her. For what felt like an eternity, we gaped at each other before I realized I should _say_ something. But for a second, I had forgotten why I was there.

"Alex is upstairs, Andi," she finally said simply, answering my unspoken question. Thank _goodness_.

I hurried past the older woman, flashing her a closed-mouthed, awkward, smile. Wait. That wasn't right. I turned back and reached out to gently squeeze her arm. She bared her teeth at me in a vague facsimile of a smile. _Oh gosh._

"Alex, is your mom okay?" I broke off as I nearly burst through the door into his room. My voice, usually sweet and light, sounded far too loud in the silence of his house.

Alex was laying on the middle of his bed, staring up at the ceiling with his headphones in. When he pulled them out and sat up at my invasion, I was afraid he would have the same tightness as his mother. He didn't, thank goodness. His undereyes were just smudged black. "How did you get in?"

"Your mom let me in," I replied, much more quietly. I twitched my mouth, biting down nervously on my lower lip. There was something going on. Something with both of them and... "Alex, what _happened_?"

He ran a hand through his dark hair, causing it to stick up haphazardly and directed his gaze to somewhere at the wall behind me. "My dad left."

"Oh _Alex_!" If everything had been running slowly and tentatively before, it had suddenly been thrown into fastforward. I rushed over to the bed, pulling my boyfriend into my arms, trying to pat down his hair, urging him to melt into my arms. I didn't know what else to do.

And then I realized that he wasn't quite melting. He was sitting up dead straight, like a stone sculpture in my arms, completely unyielding. Of course. Stone couldn't melt. Maybe he just needed more than I was giving him. I rose onto my knees to give myself a little height and ran my fingers through his hair, trying to press his head against my chest. My poor poor boy.

With a shudder that seemed to rattle his bones, Alex's eyes slide shut. "Andi. Can you go please?"

_Oh_. Oh. That wasn't quite what I had expected. My arms quickly dropped away from him as if I had been burned. "Umm... yeah. Of course." I quickly scrambled off the bed, crossing to where I had left my bag against the wall. "Um," I repeated, the bag clutched tightly in both hands, uncertain of what to do. Just leave? Finally, I crossed the long distance between his door and his bed maybe a little bit too fast, pressing an awkward kiss to his forehead when I arrived. "I'll call you tonight, okay?"

Alex nodded, but I wasn't sure if he actually heard me.

Once outside, walking without a direction in mind, I realized I was blinking furiously against tears. Which wasn't a surprise, really, I had always always been a crier for as long as I could remember. At least I hadn't cried in front of him.

I just... I hadn't expected it to be so _bad_. And life-changing. I just thought he would be a little bit sick. The flu, maybe. The flu, I could handle. Make some soup, smooth down his hair, run ice cubes over his hot lips. But this – what was I meant to do? What could I say? How could I fix it? Was I even supposed to fix it? How was I supposed to be there for him the way that he needed me to if he couldn't even _speak_ and –

I realized with a shock that I was standing directly in front of the door to Stacey's babysitting house and knocking frantically on the door. My head was lost, but my body seemed to have had some idea of what to do. _Stacey_ had divorced parents. She would know. She would know what I could do and what he would need. Sucking in a deep breath, I wrestled my face back into order and forced my tears back under control.

Stacey pulled the door open, her eyes widening and then narrowing in a split second. "_Andi_. We are supposed to meet at my house, I'm _babysitting_ right now. And I'm not supposed to have friends over."

Oh. Right. Just because my world was falling apart and Alex's world was falling apart, didn't mean – "Sorry," I replied in a tiny voice, my face immediately beginning to crumple. "That makes sense. Yeah. I'll go, I just..."

And Stacey knew. My attempts to be strong were falling apart immediately and she reached out to hold both of my wrists. "Andi, are you okay?" A small brown-haired girl appeared by her elbow, but I barely noticed.

I shook my head frantically, blinking against the tears that had snuck back up as soon as I stopped paying attention to controlling them. "Alex is... he is no good right now and his parents are di—and his dad is go—and Stacey, I don't know what to _do_!"

And she hugged me, pressing my head against her shoulder, trying to get me to melt against her, the same way I had been doing with Alex. But I melted. "Oh, _Andi_. I wish I weren't babysitting right now, but –"

"I really need to practice my piano right now, Stacey," the small girl at Stacey's elbow announced suddenly, staring up at us with big solemn eyes. "My mom and dad will be very upset if I do not do it. So I should go practice it and you should help your friend."

_Oh._ Stacey took my hand and led me into the front room – and I understood why she was willing to keep babysitting this one particular little girl. She was going to help me and I understood her and everything was going to be okay and that's what best friends were all about.


	4. He's Got Nothing To Do With Me

**He's Got Nothing to Do With Me**

Sometimes parents just don't get it. My parents, in particular. My mama and daddy were loving, supportive, beautiful, intelligent people... but they really really did not get it. In this particular case? They didn't get that taking away their daughter, even if she was their own daughter and even if it _was_ LA in December, during an entire school break was an awful idea.

They didn't get how much I would miss. My girls spending full long empty days together. _Bonding_. My best-friend-in-the-world-turned-boyfriend, who was still a stone statue of himself half the time and did not call me once while I was away. A U4Me concert. My first break from school with a real true-blue girl best friend of my own. Parents just don't remember how important these formative experiences are.

And they really _really_ don't get that it's a really _really_ bad idea to come home at ridiculously late-o-clock the day before school starts up so their only daughter doesn't have a chance to call _any_ of her friends to catch up on the gossip before being thrown face first into classes again.

At least I had a really cute, really designer, new bookbag for the first day after Winter Break. It would give my girls and I something to bond and squeal over before the final bell rang.

My face aglow and surprisingly relieved to be back in my favourite pink winter sweater, I bounded down the hallway to Stacey's "M" locker. My new bookbag swung apparently haphazardly from my shoulder – but, of course, it was carefully perched to be the most visible it could possibly be. "Hey there, Miss McGill!" I chirped, leaning back against Wayne's locker beside hers. He was done with the locker for now, I had decided, and Wayne acquiesced – as he should – by ruffling my hair and shooting off to greet Marty. "I missed ya'll so much, please please catch me up on everything I missed while I was gone! How was the _concert_!"

It made sense to talk about my vacation second. People always liked to talk to themselves.

Except I was wrong. Or Stacey was the exception to the rule. Or something. Because she didn't wheel around and throw her arms around me and squeal about how excited she was that I was back... which to be honest, I was kind of expecting. I mean, after all of our moans about how much we would miss each other when I left? But instead, she slowly turned her head and gave me a withering look. The type of look Sheila gave chess club members when they asked her out on dates. "Funny, Andi," she replied flatly and my cheeks automatically sucked in.

"I'm sorry?" I stuttered quietly, my eyelashes fluttering spasmodically against my drawn face. "Is this a bad time?" _Had I really misread invisible signs so badly?_

"It's _always_ going to be a bad time, Andi," Stacey sneered coldly as that babysitting girl – the tiny brunette one that showed up to harass her at the party we threw with Robert – drifted down from the "S"s like an itty bitty bodyguard. "Just leave it."

With no more explanation than that, she slammed her locker closed and turned her back on me, linking arms with the other girl and flouncing down the hallway. Her first period class wasn't even in that direction. She was just _leaving_.

Instinctively hugging my new bookbag against my chest, I sunk back against Wayne's locker. Sheila's presence was suddenly very apparent beside me and my stomach tightened despite my gratefulness that her locker was right by Stacey's. "I don't get it," I mumbled, turning my head to look at Sheila, my hazel eyes glimmering. Why, oh why, was I always a crier?

"Don't worry about it," Sheila murmured immediately, her pompoms crushing against my shoulder as she awkwardly dropped her arms around me. "It's just Stacey. It's got nothing to do with you."

"Then why is she—"

"Because Stacey's a fucking baby." Jacqui's voice – always the first of us to get crass – drifted over my other shoulder and I became aware of my girls nearly materializing around me, like a dramatic scene at the end of a teen soap drama episode. "That concert was a total shit show and it was all on her."

"She showed her true colours and totally let us down," Heather added, her fingers entangling with mine to squeeze the hand on the side that Sheila wasn't already holding. "She's a spaz, Andi, definitely not who we thought she was."

"You're just collateral damage." That was Mia, her voice deep, leaning against the locker next to the one I was on and tilting her head as she watched Stacey disappear around the corner. "It's shitty that she's treating you like that, just cuz she can't handle herself. You should forget it."

"We're enough, Drea," Jacqui summed up, using her secret special nickname for me as her hand snaked in to squeeze my shoulder. My shoulder that still shook under her hand. "You just need us."

But I couldn't forget it. And maybe I had them, but they all had each other... Stacey was _my_ _best friend_. I bit down on my lower lip, the colour draining out of it even under my shiny pink lipgloss, as I struggled for the right question to ask so I could understand what was going on. My friends said it wasn't me, they said that Stacey wasn't the person we thought she was... but wasn't I supposed to know her better than they did? If she was my...? How could she just...?

That was when Robert Brewster, former basketball star and Stacey McGill's boyfriend and the person who could maybe _maybe_ explain this whole craziness to me, materialized directly in front of my face. It was most likely that he had been watching the entire thing and had decided to step in when it became clear that my girls' best efforts weren't helping, but to me it seemed very much like he took one look at my face and realized I needed him.

Wait. Not _him_. Just someone who could explain.

"Let's skip Math, huh?" Robert said lowly, grasping my wrist and extracting me easily from the girls with a single motion. "Take a walk."

I had never skipped class before, as hard as it might have been to believe with Jacqui and Heather as friends. Overwhelmed with emotion and confusion, I blinked dumbly up at Robert. "I already have my Math book in my bag."

Robert's mouth crooked in a half-smile down at me and he easily plucked my brand-new beautiful bookbag out of my hand, slinging it over his shoulder. "I'll carry it for you." His arm slid over my shoulder and before I really knew what was happening, he was leading me away from my girls. "I'll explain," he added, his voice too quiet for anyone but me to hear. "They're right, there's really nothing you can do. But you deserve to know what happened at least."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alex at his locker and gave him a small wave. But I was still struggling against tears and he was too far away for me to see his face. Only... I didn't think he waved back.


	5. Not Always a Positive Thing

**Not Always a Positive Thing to See a Few Seconds Into the Future**

"Shut up!" I squealed loudly, poking at the band of Robert Brewster's boxers where they hung out of his jeans with the very tips of my pointe shoes. He had been making far too much fun of me for someone who didn't seem capable of finding a belt. And for someone who sat up ramrod straight like my mama's front room couch was in the waiting room of a funeral parlour.

The toe poking served two purposes – to annoy him but also to make him _relax_ some. We were _friends_. At least I thought we were friends. We had been hanging out, on and off but mostly on, for the past month. It was like he had taken it upon himself to fill the best friend void that his girlfriend had left in my life. The least he could do was sit back on the couch or _something_. "I do _not_ look like a cupcake! This is a very classy, lovely, _princess_ ballet costume. I'm _Juliet_," I added plaintively, flipping around to ram my head against Robert's shoulder a few times, just to make my point clear if it wasn't before.

I was a _princess_.

"Jesus, what are you, my little brother?" In a flash, Robert had "relaxed"... if relaxing meant his arms looping around me to hold me in a tight headlock. At least he wasn't doing the funeral parlour sit any more. "Normal girls don't headbutt their friends, Gentile."

"Well, normal boys don't throw little girls into headlocks!" I sassed back immediately, my hands flying up to tightly grip onto Robert's forearms and try to wrangle myself free. "Rob-_ert_!" I whined, the carefully practiced pretty pout that had worked on Alex a thousand times crossing my face as my eyes met his.

Or was it his eyes meeting mine?

And as a thousand fireworks rose and fell and exploded across the portrait window of my mama's front room, Robert and I stared at each other. His arms were still around me. But closer to my shoulders. Closer to my ribcage. And my hands were still on his arms. And for a split second, I think our chests rose and fell together like every single romance novel cliché that Heather had ever quoted to me after too many Bacardi Breezers.

"Oh shit." Forgetting that I hated curse words, Robert awkwardly tousled my hair to end the headlock and then scrambled off the couch, gesturing vaguely at the clock on the mantel. "I told Marty I'd shoot some hoops with him at the SU gym today. He wants to get in as much practice as he can 'fore the season ends. Sorry, Andi, you know you can't turn down the Bukeman."

Without reaching up to fix my hair, I nodded up at Robert. It was true. You couldn't turn down the Bukeman. And though Robert had quit the team for Stacey only a few weeks into the season, I knew what his barely available babysitting girlfriend didn't. Robert still loved the game. He wouldn't turn down any chance to play. Couldn't.

Also. After the fireworks moment, it was probably good that he was leaving. "See, Robbie, this is why I always say that you need to start using your agenda. Double-booking yourself, tsk tsk." I didn't rise up from the couch, but I did smile charmingly up at the lanky boy looking lost in my front room. _Mixed signals._ "It's okay. I have cupcake dancing to practice. I'll see you at school tomorrow."

With that, Robert grabbed his backpack, waved awkwardly at me and shuffled out of my house. Which you'd think would be enough to get him and that weird moment in the middle of our wrassling out of my head. It wasn't. Of course it wasn't.

Which was why far too long later I was still sitting on the couch in pointe shoes and my ballet competition costume when Alex poked his head around the double doors into the front room. Alex. It felt like it had been way too long since I had talked to him. Really talked to him. And I hadn't even heard a knock or anything at the front door.

Alex's face still held that carved out of stone look that I had barely seen slip, except for when he was around Stacey and his friends that "got it", since his dad... "Andi. Can we talk?"

Oh. _Oh no. No. No. No._ I had seen dozens of romantic comedies. I had watched _Sex and the City_ even though I was _way_ too young for it. I knew what that question meant. "No," I said stubbornly, pulling my legs up onto the couch and hugging my knees against my chest, creasing the front of my ballet costume.

"It wasn't really a question," Alex replied quietly, sitting on the couch next to me while making every effort possible not to touch me. The illusion of closeness without any of the reality. "We _need_ to talk. Things are different."

That was true. "You're jealous," I said softly, thinking about the way he had been looking at Robert, fire behind his stone face, ever since his best friend had become my best friend.

That was true too. "You're possessive," Alex added dully. "Sometimes I think you're going to launch yourself at Darcy Redmond's face when I talk to her at school."

_That_ was true too. Darcy and her stupid blonde hair. "We suck as a couple."

True. True true true. Alex let out a hoarse laugh, running his fingers through his hair. "Yeah. We do, Princess."

Oh _gosh_. I let out a sniffle and suddenly realized I was crying, silently, my back shaking with the effort of containing the sound. "So. What happens now?" I knew the answer to that but I needed to ask it anyway. I needed Alex to be the one to give the ultimatum-answer.

"We gotta take a break. Of... you know... everything. Take some time apart to get better." Alex happened to glance over and see the tears running down my cheeks. He suddenly seemed to come to life and, sighing heavily, he pulled me into his arms. "Andi. You said it, we suck. We gotta get to the place where we can be us again."

"Without all of this dating stuff."

"Yeah."

For a long moment, Alex and I sat quietly together, his chin resting on my head as I wrecked my carefully applied makeup. I didn't realize then that this was not not _not_ going to be the last time we would have to do this.

"So. When you leave, I guess we're going to have to just... not talk. For a little while."

Alex's chin banged against the top of my head as he nodded his agreement and I let out a huge sigh. I was wearing my princess ballet dress and everything felt messy and ragged and decidedly not like a fairy tale. What were you supposed to do or say now?

Alex seemed to feel the same way, at the same loose ends. So after a long long time, he tilted his head and pressed a small kiss on the top of mine. And then he was gone out the front door, already practicing the whole "not talking" thing we had agreed upon.

And what did I do? I picked up the phone, called Robert's house and asked his mother to please have him call me when he got home from playing basketball with Marty Bukowski.


	6. Empty of Anthems

**Empty of Anthems**

Alex was gone and it turns out thirteen year old me couldn't exist without a guy in my life.

Or maybe I just couldn't exist without Robert in my life.

Alex and I hadn't spoken in weeks. Which was quite impressive, actually, when you took into account that we had all of the same friends. My girls helped, forming an impressive literal barrier between the two of us at Pizza Express and parties. One of the best moments of my eighth grade year was watching a slightly intoxicated Jacqui trip face first into a deluxe pizza while trying to flirt with Peter Hayes to stop Alex from being able to see me after we won a basketball game against some middle school from one town over. I was never really sure how she had gotten on whatever she was on while we were at _Pizza Express_.

I had also never been so grateful that Stacey didn't hang out with The Group anymore.

But _Robert_. While the girls formed the barrier, Robert made me feel like I was still Andi Gentile, a normal and sometimes charming girl who could actually function in society. Something more than just the girl who couldn't help Alex Zacharias when he was going through one of the roughest times in his life. Or _wouldn't_.

No. _Couldn't_.

Couldn't.

Meanwhile? Robert and I were hanging out at his house. It was early February and it was very cold outside and we were standing on his driveway in flannel, jeans and winter jackets. His arms were looped around my waist, his large hands cupping my small ones and my eyes were focused directly right at a basketball net his father had mounted on the property when Robert was my height. I kind of thought that if he hadn't quit basketball, his dad would have raised the net so that he could practice before meets.

But in the meantime, _I_ got to practice between meets that I wasn't even cheering for. Robert made the very compelling argument that if I were to use my incredible rhetoric skills – and my amazing American Eagle jean skirt – to convince him to watch movies that involved dancing, it was only fair that I fully appreciate the athletic skill that went into throwing a ball into a very small hole when there were a _lot_ of distractions happening all around you.

... Like cars. And small children. And snow. And all of the other distractions that were taking place all around me on Robert Brewster's, my new very best friend's, driveway as I held a basketball against my chest. "And focus on the net... and... go..." Robert murmured in my ear, his hand firmly directing the shot towards the net. And then he groaned loudly, his arms automatically settling around my waist. "_Andi_. You have to at least _look_ at the net when you're shooting. Otherwise you're never going to get it to go where you want it to go."

How was I supposed to look where I wanted it to go when someone was breathing on my shoulder?

"It's _hard_, Robbie," I murmured instead, turning around to look Robert in the eye, before realizing that I was still standing in his arms. He hadn't dropped them after I completely fumbled that last shot. "And I'm cold," I added, slipping out of the awkward situation and tripping towards my bookbag to rescue a pair of gloves from it. And also to breathe.

"Oh yeah, shit, we've been out here for a couple of hours," Robert muttered, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets as the basketball bounced only twice on the beaten down behind the basketball net. "You wanna go inside and have some hot chocolate or somethin'?"

I could not speak. And the feeling felt oddly familiar, something like an afternoon full of ballet costumes, which it shouldn't have because Robert had a girlfriend who used to be my best friend and now he was my best friend, but that was the way it felt. And despite the fact that I maybe should have been unsettled by this feeling, I nodded silently and extended my gloved hand towards Robert Brewster, letting him lead me inside his house.

I could have sworn I had drunk hot chocolate in Robert's house before. But this time, as I sat on a stool at his family's newly installed island with my feet twisted around legs, it felt a thousand times different. "Do you miss basketball?" I asked quietly, probably looking to break the silence as Robert poured hot water into his own mug of powered mix.

"Every day," Robert replied just as quietly, sitting on the stool next to mine. "Or... every time I watch RJ fumble a shot that I woulda made, I do, anyway."

"Maybe you should stop coming to games and torturing yourself, All-Star." I giggled, leaning over and knocking against Robert with my shoulder. Probably an attempt to lighten the mood. Find the friend that I had – and needed – before Alex and I broke up.

"Maybe I should," Robert agreed, leaning his head down against mine. His temple pressed against my hair and I didn't even reach up to try to push it off or fix my hair. "But when I go to games, no one notices when you and me talk to each other."

"They just assume we talk about basketball," I agreed, though even while I was agreeing, I wasn't entirely sure why it would matter that people would notice Robert and I talking. But even in spite of my earlier teasing, the mood in the room was quiet and delicate. I didn't want to wreck it.

It was always quiet and delicate when we talked about basketball. I couldn't understand why Stacey... why _no one_ _else_ saw the way all the life and energy drained out of his face when the topic of the sport came up. Or when he was trying to avoid the topic of the sport coming up. Or when RJ was shouting just a little bit too loudly about the one shot he had managed to make after the game at Pizza Express. How was it that no one else could see it?

"Do you miss Alex?" Robert asked into the top of my head, startling me out of my reverie. I nearly dropped my hot chocolate into his lap – had he been sitting that close to me before? – and took a deep breath to settle myself before answering while sliding it onto the island. That hadn't been the question I was expecting. It made sense, of course, we were talking about basketball and Alex was a part of basketball but... it just wasn't where my mind had been. At all.

"Yeah," I admitted, tipping my head down to look at my hands spread out across my thighs. I had broken the nail on my right ring finger while we were playing basketball and not even noticed. What I _did_ notice was Robert's chin hovering awkwardly over the space that the top of my head had filled until I had looked down for just a moment and a half too long until he sat straight up.

"Not _dating_ him," I explained, maybe a little bit too hastily. Except that was absolutely absurd, because there was absolutely no reason for me to be rushing into an explanation. It was just because my voice was much higher than Robert's and it changed the energy of the room. That was all. "Taking to him. Kicking him in the shin after he messes up my hair. Just _him_, in general. Alex has been a part of my life for longer than I can remember and I wish we hadn't messed it all up by deciding that part of being in each other's lives should be kissing each other."

"Oh yeah. Kissing each other does nothing but cause problems," Robert's voice agreed, somewhat incongruously with his hands grabbing my knees and turning me on my stool to face him. It was a good thing I had set down my hot chocolate. _Oh_. Robert. Hi. Yes, there he was, his stool way closer to mine then I had remembered, his hands still on my knees, his eyes shining. He looked so _alive_, the complete opposite of the way he did when we were talking about basketball.

"Yeah, you can't be doing any of that stuff," I agreed in a tiny voice, realizing that _my_ hands were still spread across my thighs and somehow my fingertips were touching Robert's. And I could really _really_ feel my fingertips touching his. That was suspicious. "Unless. You... you know... like problems."

"Which lots of people do." That was what Robert said. I think.

But I wasn't really listening and it didn't really register because a second later, he had closed the small space between us and kissed me. And a less than a second after that, I was kissing him back. And less than a second after that, his hands had slid up from my knees and tangled themselves in my hair. And less than a second after that...

Oh god.

Problems.

_Robert was Stacey McGill's boyfriend._


End file.
